


A Door Once Opened

by Arien



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arien/pseuds/Arien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor takes his hand off the lever, and doesn't leave Reinette behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Door Once Opened

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Trobadora! I hope you enjoy this story. It's a rather patchwork piece ... meaning I wrote it in sections over the weeks, then jumbled it about when it was done. I also lost a few handwritten pages and actually went through the bin to find them. That's it. That's my dedication to your gift!
> 
> No, I didn't find the lost pages.
> 
> But Merry Christmas! Hooray!

The Doctor doesn’t need much sleep, or at least not sleep as humans understand it. There are better things to do than switch off conscious thought and sleep … the farthest reaches of the universe are waiting, yearning, to be explored. There are components within the depths of the TARDIS that need tweaking, oiling, replacing, sonicking … anything is better than sleep.

When he sleeps, he dreams.

They are not nightmares, not exactly. The Doctor never dreams of Skaro, of the choices he made there. He does not dream of Gallifrey and the Moment. There is nothing in his dreams of the Rani and her cruel experiments, nor the Master’s madness. Dalek abominations are distant. His enemies feature not at all in his dreams.

Instead, he sees the faces of friends, some gone longer than others, and he wakes wishing for nightmares instead. They would be simpler. These faces bring memory and a return to pain that spans practically his entire lifetime. Nobody can run with him forever.

The Doctor wakes from one of these rare slumbers. His eyes snap open, as though some invisible or inaudible cue demands it to be so. He takes a very deep breath, filling his complex airways with oxygen, puffing up his thin frame. Then he relaxes, slowly, blinking, coming to terms with his environment.

Something isn’t right.

He’s in the library. Overhead, the books go on forever, stories longer than even his life. The fireplace crackles, brought low to cinders by his negligence. He is sitting, fully dressed in a brown suit with a loosened tie, in a high-backed sofa. The Doctor rises and jams his palm to his eye as though he were screwing it back in. He sonics the fire and the flames dance and leap, burning nothing, a miracle of technology.

The dream is lingering. It was Molly, as sharp tongued as vital as ever he’d seen her, in her nurse’s cape and cap. She seemed larger, more substantial than memory, and it takes a very real concentration on the Doctor’s part to remember she is gone. She would not even know this face.

He is spurred into action. Molly is the past and he cannot lose himself. He releases her again, and leaves the library.

To Reinette, he’d said, ‘the room chooses the guest’, forgetting Harry Potter was yet centuries in her future. She’d accepted this with that small, knowing smile of hers that he’d come to know. He watched her go, all golden skirts and embroidery, into the labyrinthine TARDIS. He did not follow. He never needed to; there were secrets the TARDIS never withheld from him. 

He knows where to go.

It should not surprise him – but it does – when he discovers Reinette’s room is exactly opposite his. His jaw drops, then locks together, and he stares at the panelled wood in silent indignation. There _was_ no other door here. There never has been. Guests, friends, companions – always they are steered away from this place. The walk is a lonely one to the room he little-uses, and keeps so secret. But there is Reinette’s door, complete with rosette carvings, opposite the plain door of his own.

 * 

“Wish me luck!”

“No.”

That one word scatters his excitement. The Doctor stares at her, astonished. His eyes widen to saucers, and an instant before the fireplace completes its rotation he takes his hand from the lever. The fireplace jolts, then slowly swings back into place. He realises then, that she knew. From the moment she confessed that she had this fireplace moved, brick by brick, exact in every detail, she had known he would go. 

And he can tell from the look in her eyes that she had not expected him to stay. 

The selflessness of her act makes his hearts ache. The Doctor knew what it cost her. The years of her life have all been influenced by him, her Fireplace Man, and the threat of a return of Clockwork People. Yet she was prepared to give him up at great personal cost to herself. She must have known she would not see him again once the fireplace finished its turn; the Doctor’s looked into her mind, she’s clever enough for that.

He hadn’t intended to leave her forever. A quick trip, proof that he was not trapped, a tight embrace with Rose – and he’d come back. His mind worked so fast. He’d already imagined it as the fireplace had turned. He would ask Reinette to pack a bag, pick a star …

But time evaporated so fast. Who was to say how many years would’ve passed in her time once he broke from Rose?

He forgets his clever words and simply holds out a hand to her.

Madame de Pompadour hesitates, then steps in. Her fingers entwine with his own, slender and strong.

* 

The Doctor gives up Mickey and Rose. He drops them home, promising he won’t be long. He’ll be back soon. There’s room in the TARDIS for them all, but Reinette … she is something different, and he wants her to himself for awhile.

The feeling is mutual. The Doctor had grand designs of taking her to planets he knew would delight her, to far-flung, beautiful constellations of stars … grand designs of showing off, basically. Reinette thought it could wait.

“This is your world?” She asks when he shows her the console room. She has done her turns, she’s come to terms with it being bigger on the inside, but the delight has not gone from her eyes. “This is how you travel through time, and space?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he says. The Doctor is aiming for nonchalance, and fails utterly. He’s watching her too closely, her fascination reigniting his own. 

“How does it work?” Reinette gazes up at the time rotor.

“Ah, see now, can’t answer that all at once.”

“Why not?” She smoothly counters. She shifts her head slightly, elegantly, one long earring swinging. She looks around the time rotor at him. “I would understand if you explained yourself clearly.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He grins. “Better to live it. Learn as you go. Full of surprises, she is.”

“She?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, she.” The Doctor pats the console. “TARDIS, Reinette. Reinette – TARDIS.”

A low, warm hum fills the control room. It’s sensation more than sound, and Reinette’s look of wonder deepens as she looks around. She feels it; she is more perceptive than most, and the Doctor’s hearts begin to pound in tandem. He needs to distract himself, and launches into action, flicking dials and pulling levers.

“Time And Relative Dimension In Space. See, easy! This thing here, no don’t worry about that, never works – see here, set date. Space-time coordinates, you set her here – “

“You have the entire universe organised, like pins on a map?!”

“Not yet,” they are shoulder to shoulder now, and when he grins at her she is closer than he thought. The Doctor clears his throat. “Getting there.”

“Where are you taking me now?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“First?”

“First.”

“I should like to see where you sleep.”

He stares at her for a moment, not entirely certain that he heard her right. His first thought was that she meant Gallifrey, but her expression is rather more intimate than that. No, she’s not asking about Gallifrey. She wants to know where he sleeps. Now.

“That’s not half as interesting as the most boring place out there,” he nods toward the doors.

“It is to me.”

“It’s really not.” The grin is gone.

“ _Show_ me,” she smiles and leans infinitesimally closer. She is all quiet sexual confidence; a woman used to getting her own way with just a little, artful, effort. 

He cannot completely refuse her. So the Doctor clears his throat, mumbles something casual and high-pitched that sounds like “well come on” and heads down the corridor. He opens a door. But as he cannot refuse Reinette, neither can he fool her.

Her brown eyes take in the impersonal little room. It has a bed, true, but the coverings are too neat. There are no impressions upon the quilt, and the entire room and its furnishings might well have been painted for all the personality they lack.

“Not your room,” she gently chides him. She does not look too disappointed, the game will go on.

“Told you it was dull.” He sniffs, looking around. The room is vaguely familiar to him. Someone he knew slept here, long ago, but he has forgotten who.

“I have decided what I should like to see first,” Reinette announces. 

“Oh yeah? Good, go on.”

“ _All_ of _you_.” 

He is not taken so unawares when she kisses him this time. It should not be like this; but Reinette Poisson had tapped into something the Doctor thought he had buried better, something he had long since believed nobody would find. And she had done it so effortlessly … he had no walls with which to keep her out, and he did not want them. Her lips are warm. The heat of her mouth fires his blood, and his hands move of their own accord to pull her close.

He breaks the kiss, breathing hard. He can go without breath for longer than this: he blames emotion. “Not usually like this, me, not … this isn’t – “

Reinette shakes her head, just once. Her fingers cup his jaw while her thumb traces his lips, her eyes following along. His lips part, and her smile deepens when she feels the wetness of his tongue. 

“Help me out of this,” she says. Her other hand has found his wrist and she directs him around her back, to where some of the complicated fastenings of her dress are. 

Her lips find his again. The Doctor discovers how difficult it is undressing sixteenth-century women. It didn’t seem this difficult the first time – the wonder of the Banana Daiquiri! The floor is littered with tiny beads snapped from threads upon her dress, lost in their hurry.

* 

Reinette trades her skirts and bodices for trousers. The Doctor hates to admit it (because it implies things about himself that he likes to think he’s above) but he misses them. There was something so transporting about that rustle of fabric, or the allure of a tightly-laced corset. Reinette enjoys the freedom and practicality of a universe of fashion, but she is still Madame de Pompadour. She experiments with clothes, learning what she likes – and what he likes. She observes him in a way that often makes him uncomfortable. She is so _aware_ , she misses nothing, and she recognises what he likes almost before he does.

She says skirts are impractical, and runs with him in slender-fitting black jeans. The canvas shoes he favours make her laugh – she calls them slippers – and chooses for herself dependable, laced boots. She likes blazers not dissimilar to his own and beneath them favours soft, slinky blouses, often with generous bows at the neckline which hang over the blazer’s lapels, hailing back to her own time. He catches her stroking her long, blonde hair when she sees women of her age wearing shorter styles. It is only a matter of time until she lops it off and embraces another little freedom.

 

On Kuat Minor, she saves his life.

He is manacled and freezing to death in a pool cut into the surface of the rock. He had tried breaking the iron on the rough-hewn rock inside the pool, but succeeded only in gashing open his skin and now he cannot feel his fingers or toes due to the cold. It’s taking him longer to die than the Kuatians would like, and debate has begun as to whether the laws of justice can be bent in this case. He might contribute, had they not gagged him in the first instance to prevent such trespass on their law.

When Reinette arrives, she looks scared. The Doctor is shivering uncontrollably, but he can see how scared she is and for an instant, he is convinced she cannot help him. He wants to tell her it’s okay. He’s not sure he could still find the strength to speak even were the gag removed.

She speaks for him.

Reinette argues his case, and the logic, for three hours before the Doctor finally loses consciousness. He hears her turning the Kuatians’ facts against them, knows she is gaining ground … but he cannot hold on, the water is too cold, and his biology can only tolerate so much…

The Doctor’s not quite warm when he wakes, but he’s getting there. He’s wrapped in thermal blankets in the medbay, and he can feel his fingers and toes again. Reinette cries when he opens his eyes. He had been unconscious for hours and hours; she was convinced he was dead. Her palms never leave her face – she can’t stop him hearing her cry, but she can stop him seeing it, and he’s not yet strong enough to draw her to him. She sits on the end of the bed, shaking much as he was. She won’t tell him how she ultimately won the case – she says he would not approve.

* 

The Doctor rests his hand on Reinette’s doorknob. After a moment’s hesitation, he turns it, and lets himself in.

He had not been inside her room, just as she hadn’t been in his. This was entirely his decision. She had asked to see where he slept and he denied it to her; it seemed hypocritical to ask to see hers. Worse yet, she might have chosen to turn it against him, and use it as a bargaining tool. One day, he might open that door to her, but not tonight. Probably not tomorrow, either, but one day.

Unsurprisingly, her bedroom is tastefully Baroque-influenced. It is mainly done in cream with gold finishes, and takes a moment to reflect upon how impressively _resourceful_ the TARDIS is. The Doctor looks over dresser with its little stool and chaise lounge draped with the clothes Reinette had worn that day. He intentionally ignores staring at the shape sleeping in the bed. He leaves the door open, spilling light from the corridor into the bedroom.

It throws enough light on the dresser for him to find little keepsakes of their adventures. He had not known Reinette kept these things. There are milky stones with their purplish, cats-eye interiors from the beaches of Iri-Rei. A posy of dried, inky-blue flowers from Hosk – he remembered her gathering these, but thought them all lost when they fled from the herd of genetically-engineered killer Elk. A simple ballpoint pen lies next to them, oh, Reinette and basic technology. He smiles, clicking the pen a couple of times before replacing it. He feels his calm restored here, he is back in the present and away from spectres of the past.

“Doctor.”

He turns. The clicking hadn’t woken her, surely. And he’d heard no perceptible change in her breathing once he came into the room. That meant she was already awake when he entered. 

“Caught. I invited myself in.”

“That’s quite all right.” Her voice sounds strange.

He takes the liberty of sitting beside her. Something isn’t right – he can feel it. She is lying on her side, her hair – not quite as long as it was once – spilling over the top sheet. The Doctor mirrors her position and rests his hand on her hip.

“Reinette…”

“I don’t think I’m very well, Doctor,” her voice is low, soft, controlled. He remembers this tone from his ice bath, and he would recognise the fear were it light enough to see her face. “I think something is wrong.”

“How do you mean?” He murmurs, and lifts his hand to her forehead. He brushes strands of hair away. “You’re a little warmer than usual…”

“I can feel it. I’ve felt it for weeks. It is so hard to keep up with you,” she adds in a whisper.

He thinks back. This rings true, now, and he was too distracted to notice until she drew it to his attention. She is good at this, at concealment, another trait they share.

“Well. We’ll look into it, won’t we?”

He can hear her smiling, in her voice. “You’re not that kind of doctor.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” He forces some humour into his voice, determined not to match fear for fear. 

This is not Reinette’s time, and she forgets that too often. Maladies that would sign a death warrant in her time are inconsequential when time is at one’s beck and call. Most things. Not everything, but … enough. 

“Come on.” He kisses her lips briefly, lovingly. “Up you get. We’ve got a couple of cool cats to see, you and me. Ever seen a cat in a habit? No? You’re in for a treat.” He is easing her up, aware that for his usually vital Reinette, this is some effort. “Let’s go.”

“Allons-y,” she agrees.

Sometimes he forgets she is French.


End file.
